Donald Trump and Milton Friedman Debate Free Trade

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If it wasn’t for Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump would win the title of most economically illiterate presidential candidate in the short history of the twenty-first century.

A prime example of why he’d earn this ignoble title is Trump’s opposition to free trade — a position which, not surprisingly, he shares with Sanders. The only real difference between Sanders and Trump on this issue is that no one trust that Trump would actually carry out his proposed destructive policies (he’d flip-flop on the issue like he does on everything else), while Sanders would be devastatingly consistent.

The video below compares and contrasts Trump’s ignorance about free trade with the wisdom of Milton Friedman, one of the greatest economists in American history.

If judged on substance, it’s obvious Friedman wins this debate. But in the long run Trump and other anti-free market politicians are likely to continue to convince the public to support their terrible, anti-trade policies. When it comes to economics, Americans have a tendency to reject policies that make our country more prosperous in favor of ignorant demagoguery that gives the appearance of punishing foreign nations.

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Joe Carter
Joe Carter is a Senior Editor at the Acton Institute. Joe also serves as an editor at the The Gospel Coalition, a communications specialist for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and as an adjunct professor of journalism at Patrick Henry College. He is the editor of the NIV Lifehacks Bible and co-author of How to Argue like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History's Greatest Communicator (Crossway).